Terrific ‘Money Monster’ puts Wall Street under the gun

In this image released by Sony Pictures, George Clooney appears in a scene from "Money Monster." (Atsushi Nishijima/TriStar Pictures- Sony Pictures via AP)

In this image released by Sony Pictures, George Clooney appears in a scene from "Money Monster." (Atsushi Nishijima/TriStar Pictures- Sony Pictures via AP)

Photo: Atsushi Nishijima, HONS / Associated Press

Photo: Atsushi Nishijima, HONS / Associated Press

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In this image released by Sony Pictures, George Clooney appears in a scene from "Money Monster." (Atsushi Nishijima/TriStar Pictures- Sony Pictures via AP)

In this image released by Sony Pictures, George Clooney appears in a scene from "Money Monster." (Atsushi Nishijima/TriStar Pictures- Sony Pictures via AP)

Photo: Atsushi Nishijima, HONS / Associated Press

Terrific ‘Money Monster’ puts Wall Street under the gun

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“The system is rigged. They’re stealing everything from us. They’re stealing the country.”

These are lines from “Money Monster,” spoken by a young, white working-class man who is so angry and frustrated, he has become unhinged. Hearing him say such things, you’d think you were watching a movie made in response to everything that has been happening so far in the 2016 campaign.

But this is a movie that began filming in February 2015; obviously it was written long before that. It’s uncanny how movies can sometimes anticipate the historical moment and speak to it.

This is a strong thriller, buoyed by the serious star power of George Clooney and Julia Roberts and an astonishing chameleonic turn by Jack O’Connell, who looks and acts nothing like he did as Louis Zamperini in “Unbroken.” Here he’s scruffy and desperate, not at all handsome, and he even seems about three inches shorter than he did in the earlier film.

It was wise that director Jodie Foster decided not to go with a known star in that role. Better to have someone with no associations. O’Connell plays one character, but he seems to stand for many.

Add “Lee Gates” to Clooney’s growing list of self-aware narcissists, both in love with their own magnificence and disgusted with themselves. Lee is a cable TV personality, a fast-talking financial advisor clearly patterned on Jim Cramer, though a little more urbane. Lee sings and dances, puts on gloves and shadow boxes and advises people to buy stock.

He’s a money entertainer, with a show called “Money Monster,” but people actually listen to him. And one day one of the suckers who listened to him shows up at the station, while he’s on the air, with a gun and a vest full of explosives.

“Money Monster” runs a little more than an hour and a half, and it plays out in real time. Lee is forced to put on the vest, while the young man, Kyle (Jack O’Connell) holds the gun in one hand and the detonator in the other. The movie feels so propulsive and full of incident that it’s only later, thinking about it, that the realization dawns that the movie could easily have felt static.

The bulk of the running time is spent with two guys on a TV set, one berating the other. Roberts’ role, meanwhile, is done almost entirely from a chair. Easily half of her dialogue is spoken from her desk, into the microphone connected to Lee’s earpiece. But nothing about the role feels sedentary. Things are constantly happening.

The movie’s sense of motion derives from the script, with Clooney’s character constantly having to devise stratagems, second by second, to talk the younger man down. The sense of motion comes as well from the frequent cutting — from the set to the booth to the police to the public’s reaction to tragicomedy playing out on live television.

Foster was handed an unusually good script (by Jamie Linden, Alan DeFiore and Jim Kouf), and she rose to it, investing it with urgency and enriching it with winning performances.

Starting today, will people be talking about this movie? Certainly, it deserves as much. Or will audiences assume that it’s too close to the world they’re trying to avoid and stay away?

We already can pretty much guess that it will be cited years from now in dissertations examining the links between it and the 2016 election. But “Money Monster” is better than a mere statement of the times. It’s terrific entertainment, and it deserves to be seen now.